Broken insulator causes AEP outage

Power service was interrupted for 885 AEP customers in Scioto County on Wednesday.

“We have a broken insulator that caused a line to lock out,” said Vikki Michalski, spokesperson for AEP.

According to Michalski, the insulator failed at 1:30 p.m., disrupting service for 885 AEP customers. That’s 2.5 percent of the total 36,209 AEP customers in Scioto County. She said they believed it would all be restored by 3 p.m.

It’s unknown if the outages were caused by a violent weather system that swept across the United States on Wednesday. The storm system is responsible for thousands of outages across the southern and Midwest U.S., and at least one death in Nashville, Tenn.

“We had some weather go through the area this morning and it could be related to that. We won’t know exactly until … well, we may never know exactly why the insulator broke,” Michalski said.

Ryan Scott Ottney can be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 287, or rottney@civitasmedia.com.